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Licking County officials plan to raze crumbling Newark landmark

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoEric Lyttle | DispatchPart of the facade of the Licking County Children’s Home fell last week, prompting county officials to erect a safety fence around the vacant structure.

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NEWARK, Ohio — For more than a century, the pastoral setting of the Licking County Children’s
Home was a bustle of activity along Main Street on Newark’s east end.

Thousands of parentless children lived inside the brick walls of the sprawling three-story
mansion. They played in the front yard under the shadow of tall trees, where the community gathered
every summer for ice-cream socials.

Those memories have given way to age and gravity. Last week, a large section of the building’s
facade crashed to the ground. The collapse prompted the county to surround the crumbling home with
a chain-link fence covered in danger signs.

“It needs to come down,” said Commissioner Tim Bubb.

Last week, the commissioners announced that they intended to seek bids for the building’s
demolition.

“Historic preservation is a wonderful thing,” said Commissioner Doug Smith, “but it has to start
long before deterioration sets in. Its time has come and passed.”

Yesterday, however, commissioners listened as two community activists presented an
alternative.

Chris Ramsey, owner of the Sparta restaurant and coffee shop, and Mark Fraizer, a project
manager at Park National Bank, asked the county to reconsider demolition plans.

Ramsey, who also is the local leader for Roots of Success, a national “green” jobs training
initiative, said he wants to restore the Children’s Home using a number of green-building
techniques. He envisions converting the bottom floor into a community center offering job training.
The top two floors would be converted into affordable housing.

Ramsey has enlisted a team of supporters, including local developer Jerry McClain, the branch
presidents of Huntington and Park National banks, and Jeremy King, Denison University’s
sustainability coordinator, who offers a volunteer work force from the Student Learning Center.

“The resources are here in the community,” Ramsey said. “It’s a matter of pooling them
together."

The commissioners were skeptical. “I think we’ve run out of time,” Bubb said.

Smith agreed. “The building is in dire shape,” he said. “In my heart, I really would like to
save that building. But in my mind, it’s such a daunting task, even for large groups with bundles
of money.”

The commissioners discouraged Ramsey’s request for a walk-through for safety reasons, but told
him he was welcome to review the demolition plans.

“Did it dissuade me? Oh, no way,” Ramsey said. “There may be some things we can do there. Then
again, the commissioners may be exactly right and it’s unsalvageable. If that’s the case, we’ll
turn our attention to other historic buildings in Newark.”

The Licking County Children’s Home opened in 1886. It was decommissioned in 1975. After that, it
served a number of tenants, including a community medical center, the Licking County Genealogical
Society and the county. It was closed in 2009.

Since announcing the demolition, Bubb said a number of former Children’s Home residents and
family members have called to ask for bricks from the building. The commissioners agreed that once
demolition is well under way, they’ll make bricks available for free to those who are
interested.

Other parts of the building also will be salvaged. More than a dozen doors will be used in the
ongoing restoration of Newark’s jail, which was designed by the same Columbus architect as the
Children’s Home — Joseph W. Yost.

Yost also designed Orton Hall on Ohio State University’s campus, the Broad Street United
Methodist Church Downtown and nine county courthouses.